Archive for the ‘Philippe Boucher’ Category

Even though he only played in Dallas a few seasons, he'll always be a Star to me.

TSN is reporting that Phillipe Boucher has announced his retirement today. Although Boo was only with the Stars for a few short seasons, I really enjoyed watching him the years he was in Dallas.

I saw two very memorable Boucher moments in person, and one of them was great while the other was actually pretty terrifying.

I saw him score his only career hat trick (I think this was his only one, but let me know if I’m wrong!) against the L.A. Kings on one of my family’s “day after Thanksgiving” hockey holidays. This was in the 2006-07 season where Boucher set a personal career record in goals and a Dallas Stars team record in goals. He was also on the starting lineup for the 2007 All-Star game that was played in Dallas. He did this all while he had to deal with tremendous personal problems off the ice.

In the 2003-04 season, we also saw Boucher take a slapshot to the eye in a game against New Jersey. Ironically, this was also on the day after Thanksgiving. Boo certainly was the man of the hour for most of those games. Seeing a player get seriously injured on the ice is something that never leaves your mind, even though no one ever wants to experience it. Luckily, Boo was able to recover from that and came back wearing a visor full-time (his wife made him).

Boo had a wicked slapshot from the point and a huge heart that showed in every shift he was on the ice. His problem was that he often had trouble staying healthy, and as a result, he lost several seasons due to long-term injuries that kept him out of the regular season and the playoffs.

Boucher retires as a Stanley Cup Champion, and I am happy for him (even if it was with the Pens). He definitely gets a Two Sign Girl Salute! Hopefully he will retire back to Dallas, and maybe we will see him around the Stars someday.

I think I am pleasantly surprised about this trade. I really like Boo, and I wanted him to finish his career as a Star. That being said, I think his numerous injuries have finally gotten ahead of him and prevented him from really playing up to his talent level. I wish him the best of luck in Pittsburgh, but I feel that this will for sure be his last season now.

As for Sydor, I am more surprised than anything that he waived his no-trade clause to go back to Dallas. If you read the blog a few entries down, he left really unhappy with the Stars as an organization. I hope that Niskanen or Daley will see a lot less ice time with Syd coming back. Nisky will also lose his defense partner and most likely his number (Syd is also #5).

Overall, I think this trade is good for the Stars. Most people seem to think that the Stars got the bad end of this deal since Syd has been scratched for most of his games in Pittsburgh… and I think that just has to be some issues he had with Pittsburgh’s coach because he is not a healthy scratch type of player. He had been asking for a trade for a long time.

Boo, we will miss you. You’ll always hold a special place in mine and Sarah’s hearts because you read ALL of our signs and you seemed so happy when we told you we’d make one for you.

Welcome home, Syd! 🙂

From his interview today (courtesy of Heika’s blog):

“I didn’t want to leave,” Sydor said. “I have a lot of roots there, and we love Dallas. It is just a dream come true to be able to put that jersey back on. I think the reason why was a cap issue. That’s the way it is; it’s the way the system works. There are no hard feelings. I’m very excited to be back.”

Amy

Another note – Fistric is now listed on the active roster of Stars players… doesn’t make sense that we have 8 defensemen, but he hasn’t been officially recalled yet

First off, I know this road trip will still be considered a success if we can get 2 points against the Islanders tonight. That doesn’t change how terrible that loss was last night to New Jersey and how it showed this team has so many problems it may not be able to overcome this year. I’ll start from the goalie and move out (imagine Optimus Prime saying that part)

Marty showed flashes of playing well last night as his defense and offsense collapsed around him and offered no help. That being sad, he is still playing poorly this season. He goes into these slumps every season, but he has never had to play himself out of one before. Tippett always gave the starts to Hedberg, Tugger, or Smitty for a week or so while Marty would work out his problems in practice. He’d come back in 3 or 4 games and everything would roll along smoothly in net again. That’s not happening this year. I think Tippett expects Marty to play out of his slump, and I’m not sure how well it’s working out for him.

Our defense corps has problems. Of our three amazing rookies from last year, one of them is starting with what looks to be a bad sophomore slump. Niskanen has been out on front of Marty for a LOT of the goals scored against us. Tippett seems to have something against Fistric since he’s barely been playing him in games or scratching him so Janik can play. Grossman has been playing well compared to the others, but definitely not at the level we need him to be at. I really don’t think Trevor Daley is very good, and he’s definitely not the second coming of Darryl Sydor like so many people promised. He’s out there with Niskanen for almost all the goals. Boucher has been relatively invisible so far this season, but I give him a bit of a break because he did miss most of last season and training camp so it has to be harder for him to come back. I have nothing but good to say of Robi. Except for taking a few suspect penalties, he’s been our best guy on defense.

Our offense has been producing enough goals to win most games, so the biggest problem with our offense is their inability to play defense. I noticed last night how far away most of the forwards were from the defensemen when the Devils were skating the puck into our zone. Most of them forget that they have to actually play defense when they are out on the ice. Our 3 rookies look like they’re having a lot of trouble getting back to play the puck, and a large part of that is that they’re new to the league and will need some time to get used to the system. Brad Richards has been such a disappointment to this team. His defensive skills are severely lacking, and in my dad’s words he thinks “defense is what separates his yard from the neighbor’s”. Sean Avery spends most of his time skating in circles and never really doing anything worthwhile. He doesn’t look anything like a player getting paid $4 million a year.

The only forwards I actually skating after the puck into the defensive end are Brenden, Modano, Petersen, and Ott (when he is playing). So that gives us 3-4 forwards who consistently skate for the puck to help support the defensemen. Match that with our young defense corps that’s not playing up to its ability and we have a LOT of problems.

This team follows Brenden Morrow, and everyone can see that Morrow is really frustrated on the ice. He takes penalties simply because he’s angry and uses his force to break someone’s stick, knock them over, etc. I know these are stupid penalties, but I can’t help look at him like a silly puppy that does something bad so I have problems being mad at him. He needs to play better though because most members of this team will pick up their play if he picks up his.

One thing that has gone relatively unnoticed in this season so far is the resurgence of Mike Modano. The only 2 wins the Stars have come from games he scored at least 1 goal in. He has been flying all over the ice, and it’s so nice to see after watching him the past several seasons.

So Stars, the Sign Girls are calling you out. Play better!

Amy

One last thing: Congrats to Ralph and Razor for winning 2 more Lone Stars Emmys for their amazing job of covering Game 6 of the San Jose series in May.

Since this is the first game of the season I’m actually going to be able to watch, I’m going to try and do a liveblog of the game tonight. My homework situation is pretty manageable, and I go home tomorrow (yay!) so my night should be able to revolve around hockey.

My pick to score tonight is Phillippe Boucher. It’d be great to see him get another one of those amazing power play goals he was so good at two seasons ago. Plus the power play has been terrible the first two games; it could use a nice shock.

Jason Arnott probably won’t be playing tonight since he hurt his hand in their game Monday night against Chicago. I still really like Jason, but I’m glad he won’t be playing tonight.

Here you are guys. The pictures are all after the jump since there are a lot of them. All of them are now up. I noticed we got several views before they were all up, so go look again 🙂 I got stuck uploading pictures while I was reading about Piaget’s stages of development for the millionth time, helping my roommate find a bank, and eating dinner… but they’re all good now.

Practice was great. It was really good to see Boo skating again. Plus Steve Ott really liked his sign 🙂 I just wish Hagman and Brenden had come out… I wanted my hugs! (more…)